Marine Reconnaissance Unit 16
The Marine Reconnaissance Unit 16 is a team of Marines led by Shane Schofield. History Early History At Pearl Harbour, Lieutenant Shane Schofield was placed in charge of the unit, and several of his team members held a barbecue to get to known one another. In June 1999, the Recon unit was stationed on board the Shrevport landing and deployment vessel as it was undergoing repairs in Sydney. After a week, the Shrevport received an emergency distress signal from the isolated Wilkes research station in Antarctica, which claimed that they had discovered an alien spaceship buried under the ice and that the divers sent to investigate had been killed. Due to a solar flare, attempts to establish contact with the station failed. Schofield was then a part of a closed briefing to discuss the distress call, and the Undersecretary of Defense decided that Recon Unit 16 would be dispatched immediately due to its proximity to Antarctica. The Undersecretary noted that other interested parties could have also heard the call and potentially send someone to make a play for the ship, and ordered Schofield to secure the ship first for the U.S. and to consider everything else secondary. Two days later, the Shrevport dropped off Unit 16 at McMurdo Station, where the team then took on two hovercraft to get to Wilkes across the ice. Ice Station As they approached Wilkes, a civilian hovercraft travelling away from the station disappeared, so Schofield decided to dispatch Book and those on his hovercraft to investigate while Schofield's team continued to the station. Upon arrival at Wilkes, Schofield had Snake take an sniping position near the entrance in case a hostile answered the door, and Schofield was surprised when a French scientist, Luc Champion, answered. Champion claimed that a few of the scientists from the French d'UIrville station had come to assist, and lead the Marines to the Wilkes staff. Schofield informed them that his team was not there to extract them, but to hold their position until a larger force could arrive. He then learned of the happenings of the station from Sarah Hensleigh, but remained suspicious of the French scientists. During this time, Book's hovercraft located their target, having apparently fallen into a crevice in the ice. After sending Rebound down on a rope to see if he could spot any survivors, Rebound's line lurched, allowing him to see that the people inside had died, not from the crash, but having all been shot. With the team having apparently secured the station, Schofield and Montana began moving their diving equipment to E-deck while Gant and Hollywood spoke with the young girl Kirsty. Soon, Snake reported that another French hovercraft had arrived. As Schofield's suspicions grew, the rest of their team arrived, and Book reported the civilians' murders to the Lieutenant. As Gant revealed a crossbow she had found inside one of the canned foods brought by the French, the team suddenly came under fire from the French, who were in fact a paratrooper unit. Caught completely off-guard, the Marines suffered heavy casualties in the first minutes of the battle, with Ratman and Samurai being gunned down and Gant getting knocked unconscious, before the team was scattered through the first few levels of Wilkes. Book and Hollywood were harried through B-deck where they came across the Wilkes civilians. While Hollywood was killed by a fragmentation grenade, Book led some of the civilians away from their assailants. Schofield retrieved Gant, however their initial cover was blown up and a vent system began leeking flammable gas. While Snake, Montana and Santa Cruz fought the French on A-deck, Schofield and Gant prepared to cover Rebound, Mother and Legs on B-deck, they ran into Book and the civilians. Caught between two enemies, a burst of fire from the French ignited some the gas, causing everyone on the B-deck catwalk to fall into the diving pool below. With Legs dead, everyone was surrounded by killer whales, which began picking them off. Schofield dived in to save Kirsty, and though one of the Wilkes scientists was killed, the other Americans made it out, however Mother's left leg was torn off. Though the French lost a lot of their men to the killer whales, they switched off the lights, and with the addition of their crossbows not being able to ignite the gas-filled station, had the apparent advatage. Luckily, the Marines still had the better numbers and their maghooks, and began attempting to corner the French paratroopers. However, while Schofield and Gant were attacked by Latissier and Cuvier, another French trooper set up a directional charge in the drilling room, but was caught and killed by Rebound. After Schofield and Gant killed their opponents, they and the other Marines followed the remaining Petard to the drilling room. Though he claimed to surrender, Rebound revealed the charge, which he had turned around, and instead killed Petard, ending the battle. Following the battle, the Marines searched the station for any erasers or additional enemies, and captured the two real French scientists, Champion and Henri Rae. Mother was set up as comfortably as possible, and the still-barely alive Samurai was recovered. After consulting his team on where they stand if more enemies show up, Schofield decided to send Gant, Montana and Santa Cruz underwater to the cavern with the ship while the rest will fortify the station as best they can. Learning from Hensleigh that Champion is a surgeon, Schofield has Rebound retrieve him so that he might save Samurai's life, but was shocked to learn that Samurai has died, not because of his injuries, but by suffocation. With his fellow team members being the only possible suspects, Schofield has Rebound keep this to himself before they send Gant's team, along with Hensleigh, down to the cavern. Intercepting a French message stating that the station will be destroyed if there if no response in three hours, Schofield consults Abby Sinclair, the station's meteorologist, to see if there might be gaps in the solar flare which they can use to signal for assistance. Schofield then visits Mother, and admited that he blamed himself for not seeing the paratroopers for what they were and also noting how lucky their victory truly was. Regarding Samurai's murder, Mother reminds him that one Wilkes scientist, James Renshaw, had apparently killed another scientist before their arrival and might have escaped his confinement. After he ordered Snake to check on Renshaw, Schofield was shot in the neck, his heart stopping. However, his would-be-assassin kicked his body into the diving pool, unknowingly kickstarting his heart due to the icy water acting like a defribulator. Retrieved and patched up by Renshaw, Schofield was soon shown footage of his assailant. Recognising it as Snake, Schofield rushed to prevented him from killing Mother as well, resulting in Snake's capture. During their attempt at questioning their traitorous teammate, Snake revealed that he was an agent of the Intelligence Convergence Group (ICG), a secretive government intelligence organisation dedicated to maintaining America's technological superiority at any cost, and whom upon seizing the spacecraft would kill Schofield and his team to prevent them from spreading word about the spacecraft. Though Sinclair found a gap they could transmit a signal through, the Marines' tranmission was blocked by an incoming platoon from the British SAS, led by Briadier-General Trevor Barnaby. With the unit heavily-depleted due to Gant's team's absence, Mother's injury and Snake's betrayal, Schofield decided that since he, Book and Rebound couldn't possibly defend the station by themselves, they would have to evacuate the civilians and take them to McMurdo. After warning Gant's team, having arrived in the cavern and found the ship, Schofield prepared to move Mother, only for her to demand he leave he behind since she'd slow them down. As their hovercrafts raced away, Barnaby sent a squad after them. In the ensuing chase, Book was captured after saving Kirsty from a fall, and while Rebound went on with the civilians, Schofield and Renshaw ended up going over the sea cliff. Schofield, spying the French submarine targeting Wilkes, managed to destroy it before it could blow up the station, and proceeded to search for a way back to Wilkes. After finding diving equipment in what had once being another ice station before it had disappeared in a iceberg, Schofield and Renshaw began making their way back to Wilkes. The captured Book refused to give Barnaby information regarding the cavern, however when Snake sold out the team in there, Barnaby had Book strung up and fed to the killer whales. Meanwhile, Gant's team uncovered the remnants of a secret ice station that was unknowningly built over by Wilkes after being burried in an earthquake, and learned that the ship was a prototype stealth fight built in secret. They were briefly harrassed by a dive team from the SAS, only to watch their enemies be slaughtered by mutant elephant seals. Schofield, having seen Book's death on a camera footage inside the rising diving bell, prepared to confront the SAS, but was captured instead. Forced into a duel to the death with Snake, Schofield killed the traitor and took weapons from Petard's body, which he then used to escape, retrieve Kirsty and detonate nitrogen charges on the SAS. Schofield then pursued the fleeing Barnaby in the diving bell, which he caused to implode. Having taken back the station, Schofield found himself unable to locate Mother, before Renshaw showed him a recieved email from a presumed dead Marine and friend of Schofield's, giving him a list of ICG agents. Upon seeing Montana's name on the list, Schofield radioed a warning, which came too late for Santa Cruz. Though Gant was wounded, she managed to trick Montana into getting close to the elephant seals, leaving him to get torn apart by the bull. Once Schofield learned that Wilkes had been surrounded and an ICG-controlled SEAL team was coming in to kill them, Schofield, Renshaw and Kirsty dived down to the cavern. As the station was rocked by Barnaby's demolition charges, preparing to turn the entire area into an iceberg, Gant killed the also ICG Hensleigh, before Schofield hatched a plan to use the prototype Silhouette to escape the station before a nuclear warhead struck. After escaping, Schofield engaged in a dogfight with a squadron of F-22 Raptors under the control of the ICG before landing on the USS Wasp. Later, Gant recovered from her wounds in the Wasp's medical bay, Rebound reported in that he had made it to McMurdo safely, and Mother was located after she managed to escape the station before the missile's detonation. After Ice Station In the aftermath of the Wilkes incident and the exposure of the ICG, the laregely-decimated team was disbanded, and its surviving members assigned new posts. Team Members *Lieutenant Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield *Gunnery Sergeant Scott "Snake" Kaplan *Staff Sergeant Buck "Book" Riley Sr *Sergeant Morgan "Montana" Lee *Sergeant Gena "Mother" Newman *Lance-Corporal Elizabeth "Fox" Gant *RFC Robert "Rebound" Simmons *Private José "Santa" Cruz *Corporal Oliver "Hollywood" Todd *Private Augustine "Samurai" Lau *Corporal Georgio "Legs" Lane *Sergeant Mitch "Ratman" Healy Goals Recon Unit 16 serves the Marine Corps, performing operations that involve scouting out bases, or securing locations in preperation for a fully equiped team. Equipment Transport *Hovercrafts Weapons *M16E assault rifles *MP-5 machine pistols *.44 automatic pistols *Desert Eagle pistols Other *Armalite MH-12 Maghook *Scuba gear Trivia *Of the team, currently only Schofield and Mother remain in active service (due to Rebound's decision to retire and Gant's later death in Scarecrow) Category:U.S. Soldiers Category:Ice Station Category:Armed Units Category:Faction